Defying calls to quit, Perry keeps going in S.C.

Rick Perry speaks at a forum for the Personhood USA, an anti-abortion group, in Greenville, S.C., on Wednesday. (AP photo)

By Richard S. Dunham, Houston Chronicle

Texas Gov. Rick Perry soldiered on in South Carolina on Wednesday despite modest crowds, ignoring calls from prominent conservative commentators that he immediately withdraw from the presidential race.

Perry met about a dozen customers at Wild Ace Pizza in Greer, S.C., with the number of voters dwarfed by media members and Perry’s security detail. He later spoke to about 80 people at Southern Thymes Cafe, including about 20 student supporters bused in from Georgia.

“Not every day on the campaign trail is joyous,” he said at one stop.

Rumors of a Perry withdrawal swirled on the campaign trail after the governor scratched an event at Bob Jones University, a conservative religious school that long barred interracial dating, and a key Perry supporter in the state switched allegiances to rival conservative Newt Gingrich.

In an email, Perry campaign spokesman Mark Miner said the withdrawal rumors were “not true” and said the Bob Jones event “was always tentative.”

Miner said Perry plans to participate in a presidential debate Thursday night in Charleston and will continue to campaign through Saturday, when South Carolina Republicans cast their ballots. In an interview on CNN, Perry brushed off calls for him to withdraw.

“I trust the people of South Carolina to make the right decision,” the candidate said.

Perry has slipped from first to last in Republican presidential polls over the past four months. His long-shot status is prompting conservative leaders to pressure the Texas governor to bow out and help the right unite behind an alternative to Romney, whom they view as too moderate.

“It’s time for Rick Perry to drop out of the race,” conservative commentator Laura Ingraham wrote in a tweet Wednesday. “He is only helping Romney by splitting the (conservative) vote.”

Ingraham’s comments are particularly significant because she was one of the earliest and most enthusiastic fans of the Texan’s candidacy. But she wasn’t the only Perry fan in the conservative movement to implore him to shutter his struggling campaign before Saturday’s South Carolina primary.

Erick Erickson, founder of the prominent conservative blog RedState, which hosted Perry’s announcement of candidacy in August, said Perry could be a “kingmaker” if he left the race and prevented a Romney “coronation.”

“If he departs before Saturday, he could be a hero for one of the non-Romney candidates,” Erickson posted on his website. “If he waits until Sunday and the race is close, as it appears to be, Rick Perry will rightly be remembered as the spoiler who handed Mitt Romney the nomination.”

In a symbolic defeat, the struggling candidate also lost the support of Maj. Gen. James E. Livingston, a medal of honor recipient who was South Carolina chairman of Perry’s Veterans coalition, who plans to endorse Gingrich on Friday night at an event aboard the USS Yorktown.